It's a shame that My Brother Tom has been slapped with an 18 certificate, because its ideal audience is a few years younger than that. They'd perhaps see eye-to-eye with the alienated duo at the centre of the film - middle-class Jessica (Harrison), whose coming-of-age is abused by her teacher-neighbour; and working-class Tom (Whishaw), also abused but driven further into a masochistic fantasy world.
Their friendship is at first difficult to buy into - Whishaw's otherworldly weird turn is a bit too actorly to take as real life. Slowly, however, Rotheroe's direction draws us tightly into their private world, aided by Robby Muller's intimate cinematography.